


Your Move

by SegaBarrett



Category: Chess - Rice/Ulvaeus/Andersson
Genre: Choose Your Own Adventure, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-11-01
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:54:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 28
Words: 6,763
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27247603
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: A Chess Choose Your Own Adventure.
Relationships: Anatoly Sergievsky/Florence Vassy
Comments: 9
Kudos: 6
Collections: Fic In A Box





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [primeideal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/primeideal/gifts).



> Disclaimer: I don't own Chess, and I make no money from this.

Well, Freddie has quit and left the match entirely. He has also taken most of the contents of the mini-bar with him. Florence has taken this in stride thus far, but the next time she travels for business, she’s getting her own room. She’s also bringing her own drinks, as $100 for a bottle of champagne and $10 for a Coke is ridiculous.

Anatoly, meanwhile, is less concerned about the fact that Florence is about to get a mini-bar bill the size of her paycheck (if Freddie even sends it) and more concerned about trying to defect to the nearest embassy.

There are two options, within the same general radius of the hotel in Merano. They can go to the U.S. embassy or the U.K. embassy, both of which would likely be happy to get a defector from the Soviet Union. Or at least they hope.

What should Florence do?

**A. Go to the U.S. Embassy  
B. Go to the U.K. Embassy  
C. Let Anatoly figure it out while Florence chases down Freddie to get her champagne back**


	2. A

**Go to the U.S. Embassy.**

“We should go to the U.S. embassy,” Anatoly suggests, and Florence decides that’s a pretty good idea. After all, she has been living there since she was five years old, and if she introduces Anatoly to a Chicago-style hotdog, it is likely to start their relationship off on the right foot.

“Let’s leave right away,” Florence agrees, “It’s better to catch the Soviet government unawares.” As well as the hotel, so they can’t bill her for the minibar. Maybe she can circumvent it to Walter’s office. 

They get in a cab and head right there, running through the doors of the embassy looking like a cross between a set of hungover newlyweds and a pair of bank robbers. 

“We’re looking to defect. I mean, he’s looking to defect,” Florence said. An embassy worker looked up slowly and yawned.

“Here’s some papers to fill out. Put them up on the desk when you’re done and then take a number. Make sure to return the clipboard.”

“Has this been a problem in the past?” Florence asks, “Rampant clipboard theft by people who want to immigrate to the U.S.?”

The worker looks back at her.

“Clipboards, pens, a garter snake. You would be surprised.”

“That last one was Bob!” yells a voice from the back.

It’s then that the door busts open and Walter de Courcey arrives on the scene, adjusting his collar and looking around as if he is on some sort of a mission from God.

“Oh, for the love of…” Florence mumbles. “Look who’s here.” 

“Listen, both of you! Are you looking to defect? Then let me grease the wheels for you! I know how to get things done!” Walter declares, and Florence rolls her eyes, but she looks back over at Anatoly, considering it.

**D. Go here for Florence takes Walter’s offer.  
E. Go here if Florence tells him to get stuffed.**


	3. B

**Go to the U.K. embassy.**

Florence and Anatoly walk into the British embassy and immediately find themselves surrounded by British civil servants typing on typewriters and not bothering to look up in their direction.

“Hello,” Florence calls, tapping a bell at the front desk. She’s not sure if that’s what it’s for – like at a hotel – or if they just decided to have a bell there for no discernible reason, but ringing it also doesn’t seem to provoke the wanted response, nor even any response at all. All she hears is the continued clacking of keys against paper. “Hello!” she calls again, louder.

Nobody says anything, and she can feel herself getting more and more impatient. After all, now not only their love but Anatoly’s life may very well hang in the balance, and no one wants to slow their words per minute long enough to help her.

It’s then that the door busts open and Walter de Courcey arrives on the scene, adjusting his collar and looking around as if he is on some sort of a mission from God.

“Oh, for the love of…” Florence mumbles. “Look who’s here.” 

“Listen, both of you! Are you looking to defect? Then let me grease the wheels for you! I know how to get things done!” Walter declares, and Florence rolls her eyes, but she looks back over at Anatoly, considering it.

**F. Go here for Florence takes Walter’s offer.  
G. Go here if Florence tells him to get stuffed.**


	4. C

**Go get the mini-bar back.**

“I need to deal with this, give me a moment,” Florence declares, and she rushes into a cab to try to catch Freddie at the airport. She does, and he has not only cleaned out the entire minibar, but is actually wheeling the minibar itself through the security checkpoint.

“You get back here!” Florence declares. “How can you run out on me? On chess? On the minibar bill? I get you’re disappointed that I fell in love with Anatoly, but you and I agreed that that wasn’t what we were… and we agreed it a long time ago, Freddie. So tell me, what is actually eating you?”

“Nothing is eating me, Florence,” Freddie snaps back, “I just don’t want to be around somebody who fell in love with a filthy Soviet.” He looks down at the minibar. “And airplane wine is disgusting, so I decided I would bring along some reserves.”

“Well, let’s you, me, and the minibar go back and talk about it. Freddie, I know that you don’t like Anatoly, but this is my chance to finally be happy. And maybe if you calm it down a little bit, you’ll find someone who you love, too. Someone who makes you happy. Someone who you want to go sing on mountains with.”

Freddie looks down and grumbles, but starts moving out of the security line and walks back over to Florence.

“You were the first friend I ever had. The only friend I ever had.”

“Then why don’t you come back to Merano?” Florence asks. “Maybe you can meet Anatoly in a different light and we can finally make some peace. He didn’t choose to be born in Russia anymore than you chose to be born in the US. And honestly, you’re a little more like one another than you would probably like to admit.”

“You’re making it sound like you’re bringing your fiancé home to meet your parents.”

“Maybe a very annoying younger brother,” Florence counters. 

They, and the minibar, all back it back safely to the hotel. However, when Florence and Freddie walk over to Anatoly’s room in the hotel, he is nowhere to be seen.

Should they:

**H. Search the hotel  
I. See what Molokov knows  
J. Put posters up on telephone poles in Italian, German, and Russian**


	5. D

**Accept Walter's offer.**

“Okay, if you’re willing to help us, then you had better put up or shut up,” Florence says, glaring at Walter. “But I still don’t trust you as far as I could throw you, and I like to think that I could throw you pretty far if I had to.”

“I just want to make inroads for democracy,” Walter protests, flashing that big salesman smile of his. “I’m ready to help you get to where you need to go.”  
With that, he nearly floats up to the front desk and begins flashing this credential and that credential, and the next thing Florence knows, she and Anatoly are being whisked out the front door towards a waiting car, and there are more press than she has ever seen before, even at the disastrous Merano press conference weeks ago. Everyone seems to want a bite of Anatoly, and people are grabbing at him like his cloak is going to cure them of leprosy.

“What the hell is this, Walter?” Florence snaps, and Anatoly is just as frustrated.

“Welcome to the West, Anatoly!” Walter declares, and suddenly Anatoly looks like he’s awash in nostalgia for Russia and starts on a long, involved discussion where Florence wonders if he looks at Russia like some kind of an old girlfriend who he still holds a flame for and doesn’t want to desert just yet.

It would be just her luck, after all.

The press seem to be tired of this after a while and clear out, leaving Florence and Anatoly pretty much alone, other than Walter yammering in their ears about how he’s going to get them the best merchandising deal that anyone had ever seen.

“I just want to go relax,” Florence complains, and they manage to make it into the car before collapsing. 

**Go to the TIME SKIP**


	6. E

**Decline Walter's offer.**

“Thanks, Walter,” Florence snaps, “But we can get there on our own. We don’t need you. Shouldn’t you be hunting down Freddie and seeing what’s left to wring out of him?”  
Walter rolls his eyes.

“Good luck trying to cut through all of that red tape, then. Sometimes it helps to have a friend in the know… you know.”

“I don’t think anybody really needs a friend like you,” Florence fires back, and Walter gets up and struts away, looking like the cat that ate the canary.

“He’s up to something,” Anatoly muses, and Florence nods.

“I hope we don’t have to figure out what it is.”

Two hours later, when they are still sitting in the waiting room of embassy, Anatoly, “I know now what it is. He is going to bore us to death. That is his grand scheme.”

“Do you think we should have asked for his help?” Florence muses.

Twenty years later, they are still there, waiting to be seen.

_THE END_


	7. F

**Search the hotel.**

“He can’t have gotten far,” Florence says, “We need to search this place high and low until we figure out where Anatoly could have gotten to.”

“Maybe he went back to the USSR. I mean, that’s what Soviets do,” Freddie grouses, but Florence’s look, that would have him on the floor if looks could kill, shuts him up for once and he begins to follow her around the floor, knocking on each and every door to try and find Anatoly.

“We’re going to split up. Molokov could have kidnapped him for all we know, and we need to get to him before something horrible happens,” Florence declares. “You take the floor below and I’ll take this floor.”

Florence does find Anatoly down at the bar, with the bar’s phone stretched to its cord’s limit, and Anatoly looking worried as he replies in Russian.

She waits for him to hang up, then slowly moves into view, sighing as she does and feeling as if she has just interrupted a funeral.

“Who was that?”

“Svetlana,” Anatoly replies. “She wants me to come home.”

“What are you planning to tell her?” Florence asks. “I mean, you were just saying that you wanted to be with me. It sounds like you have a decision to make.”

“I want to be with you, Florence.”

“Then be with me. Let’s go.” 

**Go to the TIME SKIP**


	8. G

**See what Molokov knows.**

“Let’s go find out what the hell Molokov has to do with this,” Florence announces, already furious. “I can’t believe I was dumb enough to leave Anatoly alone!” She fixes her gazed on Freddie, who shrugs and offers her the bottle of champagne. “I don’t want a drink. I want my damned boyfriend back! I hope you’re good at intimidation, because that’s what we need to go do… We’ll make Molokov tell us everything.”

“Uh, unless the intimidation involves capturing his queen, I don’t think I’m going to be much help.”

“Where’s all your macho crap now, Freddie? Aren’t you always talking about how you’re going to tear down communism?”

“Yeah, but you know, that’s on the chess board. Not, like, actually going up against people who are scary and probably have guns and all that.”

Florence huffs.

“Hell of a lot of good you are.”

“I was leaving, might I remind you.”

“With my whole minibar! How were you even going to get it on the plane?”

“I was planning to buy it a seat.”

Florence rolls her eyes.

“Come on. I might need some strategy, or at least some brattiness.” She pulls Freddie along by his arm until he huffs and agrees to help.

They make it to Molokov’s room about ten minutes later. Florence knocks on the door and waits. Something is yelled in Russian, but she can’t quite make it out, other than that she recalls it being a curse word.

“Let us in!” Florence yells, then follows with most of the Russian profanity she knows. To her surprise, the door does then open, with Molokov sticking his head out.

“What do you want? I am catching up on my melodramas.”

“Where’s the Russian at?” Freddie declares, and Molokov blinks. In Molokov’s defense, it had been a somewhat non-specific question. 

“Anatoly,” Florence clarifies, “Where’s Anatoly.”

“He has decided to return to Russia,” Molokov replies, “Perhaps you will see him in the next chess game. Or perhaps not. Svetlana has not been very happy about the things he got up to in the meantime. I will have him call you. In the meantime, I am very busy. Unless you are bringing me Kvass, you may go.”

He shuts the door in their faces.

_THE END_


	9. H

**Put up missing posters.**

Florence and Freddie begin to put up posters in the area surrounding the hotel, in a multitude of different languages. After all, people from everywhere are in Merano to see the chess match. Florence can’t help but feel as if she is putting up posters for a lost dog. _Answers to Anatoly_ , she thinks to herself. 

The posters are kind of haphazard as they don’t have a good picture of Anatoly other than what had been printed in the news the day before, but Freddie has helpfully written “Missing: Russian” above and below the picture with the phone number of Florence’s room at the hotel, with Freddie’s as a backup.

They’re sitting in Freddie’s room, Freddie watching TV and Florence watching Freddie bite his nails, when they receive the call. 

“Hello?” Florence inquires.

“I’m safe. Meet me at the embassy,” says the voice on the other end. 

**Go to the TIME SKIP**


	10. TIME SKIP

It’s been a good year for Florence and Anatoly. They live in a cozy little house in a cozy little town and have exactly two cats – though it might be more if the sounds they heard last night up in the attic were any indication – and live an extremely boring, middle-class life. Exactly the kind of thing Florence’s adoptive parents had wanted for her.

But nothing lasts forever, and one night they receive a call and Anatoly looks distressed as he answers, “Yes… Well, I can. Okay, I’ll be sure to let you know,” and when he hangs up, explains that this was the promoter trying to get him on the hook for the next chess championship. 

“Who will you be playing?” Florence inquires.

“That’s kind of the thing,” Anatoly explains, “They want us to be on some sort of planning committee. They have narrowed down where they wish to have the thing – either Bangkok or Budapest – and they may have a challenger lined up, Leonid Vigand, but then there’s something about old Freddie Trumper coming back and trying to give me a run for my money all over again. I don’t know how they expect to have a match in three months and they aren’t even sure where it will be or who will be in it.”

“Well, if they don’t know, why are they telling you?” Florence asks, her hair tied up in a towel and draping a bathrobe around herself.

“They want me to vote on where to go. I guess they’ll figure out the opponent when I get there,” he says, “But I don’t look forward to squaring off against Trumper again. He – how is it that you tend to say it – ‘stresses me out’.”

“I can relate,” Florence replies, “But if he’s there, just let him burn himself out. He gets jealous – but not the way that you think. He just needs the attention. He didn’t get enough as a child or something, I think. Let the press give it to him.” She waves it off. “I don’t know quite how I’d cope if we go back to Budapest, though. I mean… my whole family used to be there, a long time ago. I don’t even remember it at all.”

“So do you want me to bring you back there, then? It may not be what you hoped for, Florence. Or would you rather a nice holiday in Bangkok? I’ll even let you get me on the karaoke machine. Maybe.”

**I. To vote for going to Budapest  
J. To vote for going to Bangkok  
K. Try to get Anatoly not to go at all**


	11. I

Florence looks around after landing in Budapest, trying to figure out if there’s anything she remembers from before. “Before” is thirty-five years ago, and nothing seems to be ringing a bell. But maybe all of it had changed, and maybe nothing has. 

“Well?” Anatoly asks, “What do you think?”

She’s somewhere between saying that she thinks this was a huge mistake and she thinks she might be home again, but opts for neither and tries to simply take in the area around her. 

“You’d better start getting ready for the match,” she tells him, finally, and sighs. She should be out looking around, but something holds her back. Something isn’t right about everything here, and she can’t quite put her finger on it.

She can put her finger on it a little more when Alexander Molokov (sometimes Ivan), looking more dapper than she has ever seen him, struts towards the hotel with Freddie Trumper right behind him.

“What the hell?” Florence snaps, and she isn’t sure which of the two she’s yelling at, but she is yelling just the same.

“We’re working together,” Molokov explains, and then Walter de Courcey walks into the group just the same. 

“Get out of here, Molokov. You have no business here,” Anatoly tells him, but Molokov is already chuckling a way that leads Florence to find nothing funny about this in the least. “And Florence… There’s something we feel like you might like to see.”

**L. If Florence flips them off  
M. If Florence decides to go see what they want**


	12. J

Florence is thrown when she arrives at the hotel in Bangkok. There seem to be lights everywhere, and there is a feel that is different in a way she can’t entirely describe. It takes her and Anatoly out of their perfect life, yes, but also out of the grind in which she feels as if she knows him too well now and feels as if there is very little left to learn. Changing the landscape might change that.

More importantly, she needs to make sure that Anatoly is on his game for the, well, game, and that he doesn’t get distracted. But he has never been a man who is easily distracted.

They go over every possible permutation that Leonid Vigand might employ into the gray hour, up until they take a break, put the TV on, and see Freddie Trumper with a microphone in hand.

“Welcome, world, to Bangkok, Thailand! Home of more nightlife than you can shake a stick at and now, the greatest game of all!”

Freddie jabbers on about the upcoming chess match, then about all the sights to see in Bangkok, before reminding everyone that “the only important thing about this city right now is chess! But… if you must…” He brings the cameraman with him through an alleyway and then into a karaoke bar, where a man is giving his rendition of “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling. Freddie rolls his eyes, yawns and collapses into a chair. “I find all this excitement to be a bore, really. The real excitement will be these two Russians squaring off at last…”

Florence turns off the TV and Anatoly glowers at the now-blank screen.

That’s when the phone rings, and Anatoly answers it. It’s Walter, Florence can tell, and he’s making an offer of some sort, dripping honey into Anatoly’s ear. 

“He wants me to do an interview with him,” Anatoly explains when he gets off the phone.

**Should Florence and Anatoly  
N. Agree to do the interview  
O. Decline, with regrets (not really)  
P. Kidnap a cameraman and get him to do the interview Anatoly wants**


	13. K

**Try to get him not to go at all.**

“I don’t think you should go at all,” Florence tells Anatoly, “I think you should consider hanging this up. You’re already a champion and you’re already happy… aren’t you? So maybe the answer is to just stay back, stop playing games, and just… live our life.”

“Florence,” Anatoly begins, “I love you. You have made this past year so amazing for me. You are… like a light of my life. But I cannot live without chess. This is what I have trained for, since I was old enough to move the pieces around. This must be by life.”

“But what about my place in your life? You know the things that they do. If you go back out there, you’ll be feeding into Molokov and Walter and, hell, Freddie will probably show up like a bad penny, and then… it’s just more strife. You finally learned how to be happy – are you willing to just let that go to waste?”

Anatoly reaches out and takes her hands in his.

“I’m so sorry, Florence. But I must play the game. And it seems I must do it alone.”

_The End_


	14. L

**Florence flips him off.**

“I don’t need anything from you,” Florence says, flipping off Molokov rather immaturely. “I’m here to play chess. If you have another agenda, I don’t want to hear about it. I know that you don’t play fair.”

“But what’s the point of a game, my dear, if you do not play?” Molokov inquires. 

Florence thinks about it. Maybe in this place, in what used to be her home, there’s a part of her that does need to know.

Maybe that’s why she chose to come here in the first place. 

**Go to “M”**


	15. M

“Okay,” Florence says, reluctantly, even as Anatoly’s face is telling her she shouldn’t be trusting Molokov as far as she can throw him. “What is it that you want me to see?”

“Your father is here. Alive. He’s been alive the entire thirty-five years,” Molokov declares. “We are not cruel to our Soviet citizens.”

Florence snorts, and Anatoly doesn’t say anything at all.

“Well, where is he, then?” she asks.

“He’s here. Would you like to meet him?”

“Yes! I think we have established that, yes, I would like to meet him.” Florence’s eyes narrowed. “What exactly do you want from me for that to happen? Because the only game I’m interested is going to be in that arena tomorrow. I’m done with you playing games with me, or with Anatoly for that matter.”

“He’ll be at the match. Tomorrow. Then you can decide what you’d like to do.”

Then, he walks away, and Florence is stuck looking at Anatoly with her mouth slightly agape. She wants to go home, but she knows that isn’t an option. She has to decide what she’s going to do.

**Q. Go to the match tomorrow – maybe it’s her dad!  
R. Go home. This is all a trick. **


	16. N

Anatoly agrees to do the interview, and Florence accompanies him. She’s not even that surprised when the interviewer is revealed to be Freddie – Florence has just come to expect this kind of stuff by now. And of course her old chess partner, or employer, or whatever the hell he is, can’t stop ragging on Anatoly, and then they bring out Svetlana to just put a poisoned cherry on the whole nasty cake.

Florence tries to go over and get Anatoly’s attention, but he’s completely fixated on Svetlana. And she can see why – Svetlana is a gorgeous woman, not to mention she has the type of eyes that no one can look away from. If it were any other situation, Florence would be telling Anatoly to go get back with her. But as it is, that’s not really an option.

She tries to chase after him, but he’s running out the door so quickly that she loses track of him. She does, instead, bump right into Svetlana. 

Should she:

**S. Make some small talk and act like she doesn’t know who she is  
T. Confront her about… something?  
U. Commiserate on the difficulties of loving Russian men**


	17. O

“Walter, while we appreciate the offer, I can’t say that I have the time, and I want to spend all of my energy working on making sure that my match will be well-played. So, I’m very sorry, but I just don’t have the time. Perhaps after the championship has ended.”

He hangs up the phone and looks over at Florence, then sighs.

“We may regret that in the future.”

**GO TO "X": BANGKOK FINAL MATCH**


	18. P

Florence doesn’t know exactly what makes her do it, or why she decides to head out for the Global Television Studio armed with only a bunch of sporks, but when she hordes the cameraman in the back of her cab, it feels like some sort of victory.

She’s sure that she hears Freddie, of all people, yelling something across the parking lot, but she’s also very tired of hearing his voice. She’s tired of hearing a lot of people’s voices, if she is being entirely honest with herself.

“I don’t really know what’s going on, but no one is going to pay my ransom if that’s your plan. I’m just a lowly cameraman.”

“You’re here to tell my story,” Florence snaps back, “Haven’t you ever seen _Man Bites Dog_?”

“No, and I’m pretty sure none of my poodles would really like it, either…” the man muses.

That’s the moment that Florence hears the sirens and sees the lights all around her.

She puts her hands up.

_The End_


	19. Q

“The match” turns out to refer to not the first match in Budapest but the last. 

“It’s funny how word scan be open to interpretation,” Molokov says with a big smirk when she brings it up.

Freddie is preening like a peacock over on his side of the board, and Florence wonders if he knows or cares what’s at stake. He might, but he also might not – he wants the attention so badly that he’s become a willing puppet of whoever will make him feel important, she thinks to herself. But she also can’t deny that in a way, she’s in the same boat.  
It can be hard to live without a parent’s love, after all.

And so she scans the crowd for Gregor Vassy, wondering if she can even recognize him at all after all these years. After all, she hadn’t even had a photo of him to hold on to; but some part of her is sure that she’ll know his face like she knows her own.

Part of her feels like she has to.

She ignores a woman who’s looking at Anatoly like she wants to kiss him or kill him, both, and then focuses on Anatoly himself. Whatever is going on, it all ends today, and it all ends in his hands.

Anatoly looks at her, and he begins making moves across the board just as Florence glimpses somebody in the crowd who is, now, staring at her. 

And she stares right back, because what else can she do? Is she imagining that that is her father, simply because she believes it to be true? Or is she imagining that it is Gregor Vassy out there because if not, the way that Anatoly has clearly begun to throw the match – a silly move of the queen here, a thoughtless slide of the rook there – has to be for something?

She hears Freddie’s voice triumphantly say, “Checkmate” and she realizes that she doesn’t feel anything about any face staring at her out in the crowd.

Her father may be dead or alive, but he’s not here in the stands.

Anatoly knows her too well, and he loves her too much. And now he’s lost.

_The End_


	20. R

“I’m going home, Anatoly,” Florence tells him the next morning. “To our home. This isn’t… I can’t do this anymore. They’re going to try to dangle my father’s freedom in front of me, in front of us, and I can’t let myself take the bait anymore. It’s time for this to end now.”

“And I need to stay,” Anatoly tells her. “I need to stay and finish the match. When everything is done… Well, when everything is done, I will come home.”

Florence decides not to ask him which home he means. All she can do is kiss him, and hope. 

But her hope died a long time ago.

_The End_


	21. S

Florence walks over to Svetlana and smiles at her awkwardly. 

“Hello,” she says, “Are you Svetlana Sergievsky?” and of course she knows that she is, so she wonders why she’s asking such a dumb, obvious question. Maybe sometimes being around Anatoly makes her dumb, makes her dumb and hopeful and positive in a way that she had never been before. 

“That’s me,” Svetlana replies. She seems kind of guarded, the way Anatoly always is whenever Russia or his past comes up. Whenever Svetlana comes up. “What was it that you wanted…” She narrows her eyes. “Miss Vassy, is it?”

“That’s it,” Florence replies, and suddenly feels ashamed. Maybe she should have felt it all along, but she had spent so much of her life feeling guilty that maybe that wasn’t even an option anymore. 

“It’s good to see you. In person. I had wondered what you had looked like,” the woman says. Svetlana says. There’s a grace in the way she stands that makes Florence feel awkward on her own feet. 

“Well?” Florence asks, “Now that you know… What do you think?”

“That Tolya has a type, certainly,” Svetlana replies, cocking her head to the side a little bit and then beginning to walk away. Before she does, she says, “listen… don’t trust Molokov, no matter what he might promise you. He promises a lot of things. It’s all jagged pieces underneath the beautiful mirror. Take that advice.”

She walks away, and Florence finally finds Anatoly and, wordlessly, travels back with him to the hotel.

“So you’ve met,” Anatoly says at last, and Florence doesn’t have time to reply before the phone rings.

It’s the voice of Walter de Courcey, and he tells her, “We found your father. Can you believe it? That old dog was alive in Russia all these years! Do you want to hear more?”

Well, does she?

**V. Ask Walter to tell her more  
W. Ask Anatoly what he thinks she should do  
X. Hang up on him and continue to the final match**


	22. T

“What are you doing here?” Florence yells, rounding on Svetlana as soon as she has her in her sights. The woman looks back at her, not seemingly shocked at all, and that seems to take a lot of the wind out of Florence’s sails. The woman should be mad at her – shouldn’t she – but instead she is fixing her with some weird iron gaze that seems like it doesn’t belong here. 

But maybe Florence is the one who doesn’t belong here.

“I came to ask my husband to come home,” Svetlana tells her calmly. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“I do,” Florence replies. “He’s with me. I love him.”

She sounds a lot, too much, like one of those women on a daytime talk show. Her desperation comes out in her voice, too much. Maybe she’s actually done with Anatoly, maybe she’s not, but she isn’t ready to feel as if she’s handed him off to a woman she only just met, either.

It was all so easy back in Merano.

“I’m going to go back to the hotel and think,” Florence says finally, and she walks back without Anatoly. He will catch up with her eventually, and then they will both have a decision to make. 

She’s lying on the bed in the room when the phone rings.

It’s the voice of Walter de Courcey, and he tells her, “We found your father. Can you believe it? That old dog was alive in Russia all these years! Do you want to hear more?”

Well, does she?

**V. Ask Walter to tell her more  
W. Ask Anatoly what he thinks she should do  
X. Hang up on him and continue to the final match**


	23. U

Florence slowly approaches Svetlana, not wanting to scare her off. She doesn’t need manipulation or love right now, or even advice – what she needs right now is just a friend, and she’s not sure what makes her think that Svetlana would be able to willing to provide such a thing. But she approaches her anyway, trying to look non-threatening and contrite, and introduces herself quietly.  
They both step out back, and Svetlana seems to be wordlessly looking at the moon.

“I feel like sometimes I don’t really know him at all,” Svetlana says, eventually, “and others times, I feel like I know him too well. Like I can predict every move he is going to make, and that it’s not going to involve me in the end. Listen to me, Florence – what I worry is that neither of us will win in the end. Whoever it is, it is not going to be us.”

“I know the feeling,” Florence replies, quietly, and stares up into the pitch black sky. When had it gotten so dark? Maybe it always had been. “Maybe whatever he needs isn’t either of us at all.”

She stays out late before finally returning to the hotel. Anatoly is already in bed, and when the phone rings, she scoops it up quickly so it doesn’t wake him up.

It’s the voice of Walter de Courcey, and he tells her, “We found your father. Can you believe it? That old dog was alive in Russia all these years! Do you want to hear more?”

Well, does she?

**V. Ask Walter to tell her more  
W. Ask Anatoly what he thinks she should do  
X. Hang up on him and continue to the final match**


	24. V

Florence sighs, knowing she should ignore anything that comes out of Walter’s mouth because it is most likely just going to be a bunch of lies. She remembers the way that he preyed on Freddie, seeing the lack of self-esteem and pouncing upon it, promising that he would be loved if he had enough merchandising deals and his face was on enough screens.

And she knows that she has as much for him to prey on as Freddie did. That was what had brought them together at first, after all – two lost kids playing a game together. Two orphans, kids without families – Florence without one and Freddie might as well be without one. She had been able to overlook the way he had never quite grown up, because maybe she had never quite grown up just the same.

Maybe she’s still looking for Gregor Vassy in the crowds.

And that’s why, when Walter offers the carrot, she takes it, grabs it and refuses to let it go.

“All Anatoly has to do is lose the match,” Walter says, and then the line goes dead, and Florence can’t catch a breath.

**Go to “X”, Bangkok final match.**


	25. W

Florence turns her head and notices that Anatoly, who had been quite silent, is staring at her as she listens to the voice on the other end of the phone.

“Wait,” she says, and places the phone off the hook, then sighs and looks over at Anatoly. “He says that he knows where my father is. That he’s been in prison in Russia all of these years. That can’t be true, can it? He has to be lying. I should just hang up on him.”

“Florence, no,” Anatoly says, reaching out to take her hand in his before she can replace it on the receiver. “This is your father we’re talking about. You should hear him out.”

And as reluctant as she is – Walter seems about as trustworthy as a python – she replaces the phone to her ear.

“Talk,” she tells him.

“We can have him to you as easy as pie. Lemon meriangue, maybe – do you have a favorite, Miss Vassy? The only thing is, your lover boy needs to lose the match.”

And then the phone goes dead. Florence turns to Anatoly.

He has, of course, heard it all. He rolls over and goes back to bed, without a word, but he tosses and turns the entire night.

**Go to “X”, Bangkok final match**


	26. X

The International Chess Federation, it seems, has never been low on fanfare. Florence notices torches, everywhere, and people crowding the stands and speaking in hushed tones about who will win out.

She even notices Freddie, dressed all in white, with a microphone and a cameraman, yammering away about how no one can tell who will win it, but it looks like Anatoly’s faltering. 

_He would say that,_ Florence muses annoyedly.

Soon, the game begins, and that’s when she feels more cut off from Anatoly than ever before. He seems entirely trapped in his own mind, with his eyes flickering every so often as he makes a move. He doesn’t look up at her at all.

Craning down to look at the board, Florence notices that Anatoly really has Vigand at a disadvantage. If he makes the right call now, he can win the game.

If he makes the right call now, it will be the wrong call for Florence ever seeing Gregor Vassy alive again.

Florence jolts when she feels someone sit down next to her. When she looks over, it’s Freddie. They haven’t really talked since last year, and it’s weird to see him again. She wonders what his game is – with him on Walter’s hook, he has to have one – but doesn’t get up. After all, she has to see what Anatoly is going to do.

Whether he’s damned them all or saved them all, she doesn’t know.

“How do you think he’s doing?” Freddie asks. 

How does she respond?

**Y. “I think he’s going to win.”  
Z. “I think he’s going to lose.”**


	27. Y

Florence doesn’t even know why she is justifying him with an answer, but she looks at Freddie and says, “I think he’s going to win.”

“What does that mean for you?” Freddie asks, and she’s surprised to look at him and see that, somewhere along the line, he really had grown up a bit.

“I don’t know yet,” she admits, just as she heard a hum from down at the table.

Anatoly moves his queen, and then he looks across the table and Vigand and says, clear as day, “Checkmate.”

Freddie looks at her and says, “I’m sorry.” And everything is more than a little bit hazy.

When she runs over to Anatoly, part of her wishes she could slap him.

But she kisses him instead, because she knows he’s going back to Russia before she even says it.

And she knows that every time the phone rings, she’s going to answer it. Because it might be Gregor Vassy, back from the grave.

Or it might be Anatoly, back to steal her heart all over again.

_The End_


	28. Z

“I think he’s going to lose,” Florence says, and she doesn’t know what outcome she’s hoping for.

“What does that mean for you?” Freddie asks, and she’s not sure what to do about the fact that he seems to actually care what her answer might be.

And then she watches, as if in slow-motion, as Anatoly looks up at her and moves his queen.

It’s captured almost immediately by Vigand, who can’t seem to believe his luck, and who says, “Checkmate” as if it’s a question.

Anatoly lets Molokov lead him back away.

Florence feels a hand on her shoulder. It’s Freddie’s – at first, and he’s whispering condolences that actually sound pretty genuine.

And then she looks over and sees an old man sitting to her left.

“Hello,” she says.

“Hello, Florence,” he replies.

And the game begins all over again.

_The End_


End file.
